Pumpkin Pick-me-up: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies!

Dear readers,

It was my complete intention to post last week, but things just didn’t work out that way.  In my defense, it is that time of the semester when everything starts piling on at the same time.  Last weekend I was a lone wolf, or perhaps lone soldier, holding down the fort.  However, this gave me the chance to buckle down and get some good work done.  And bake, oh yes, there was some baking!  Here’s what we will be working towards in this post…

A plate of soft, delicious pumpkin oatmeal cookies!

You may say that I came down with the the “fall food fever” this week.   And pumpkin was the order of the day, err, week!  I’ve mentioned before my escapades into social media for my social media marketing class, and Pinterest has kind of become my go-to for new recipes to try.  There truly is a fantastic hodgepodge of recipe collections over there! (If you’re interested, here’s a link to my food pin board: http://pinterest.com/brookenado/oh-food/)

But let’s jump right in to this baking bonanza, shall we?  I knew I wanted to make cookies and found a recipe for pumpkin oatmeal cookies with white chocolate chips and dried cherries.  I know, right?  Sounds delicious.  And, oh, they are!  I decided to add some regular semisweet chocolate chips as well, figuring you can’t go wrong with extra chocolate.  The original recipe can be found here: http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/pumpkin-oatmeal-cookies/

Here’s what you’ll need:

- 2 cups flour

- 1 1/2 cups oats (old fashioned oats)

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (which is a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves if you don’t have some available)

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter (softened)

- 1 cup brown sugar (calls for light brown sugar, but I used regular)

- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 1 cup pumpkin puree

- 1 egg

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup white chocolate chips

- 1 cup dried cherries (chopped, though in my eagerness I didn’t see this and so forwent the chopping)

- about 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

Begin by adding the dry ingredients to a bowl

Ok.  First off, set the oven to 350 degrees F.  This will ensure the shortest wait to reap the rewards of your baking exertion.  Grab a moderately large bowl and mix the flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together.  In a separate bowl, beat the softened butter with the brown sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.  Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and continue mixing until blended.

Make sure the butter is softened enough to easily beat with sugar. After a couple minutes of beating, you should get a creamier mixture

Go ahead and pour this mixture in with the dry ingredients and stir together (but not too much!).  Fold in the white chocolate chips, cherries, and chocolate chips.

Here’s how it should look just before added the wet ingredients to the dry!

All together now!

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper and use a spoon to scoop the batter onto the sheet.  Cook for 12-14 minutes (12 minutes yielded soft, chewy cookies if that’s your style) and let cool.  Then, eat!

Looking good so far…

And even better now!

These cookies turned out splendidly.  They are perfect for Fall and if you like pumpkin, you will not want to miss out on these!  The white chocolate chips are sweet and complementary to the tartness of the cherries and the texture of the oats.  They are great on there own, but have an added bonus as well…

The flavors of the cookie were very complementary to the flavor the spiced caramel biscuit ice cream!

They are unbelievably good mixed with ice cream!  Or at least with one of the Haagen-Dazs seasonal flavors; “Spiced Caramel Biscuit”.  Not to endorse anything here, but I would recommend trying this flavor as it is pretty awesome.  Anyway, just pop a cookie in a bowl of ice cream, or better yet, plop a generous scoop of ice cream between two cookies for a brilliant ice cream sandwich!

Yes, this happened last night and I don’t regret it. At all.

I was rather satisfied and proud with my effort Sunday morning, and there seems to be a similar approval from my housemates.  Honestly, it was the perfect way to start off my day and bring a quiet weekend to a close as I listened to music in the kitchen while enjoying the harmony of mixing ingredients and admiring the dough that was coming together.  Also, the house smelled really nice.

Readers, if you are a fan of Fall themed foods definitely give these cookies a try.  I pretty much followed the recipe to a “t”, aside from adding in the semisweet chocolate chips and an extra dash of nutmeg with the dry ingredients.  It takes a bit of time to mix everything and then get the batter on the cookie sheet if you’re working alone, but it is a simple recipe and worth the effort.  It yielded between 35 – 40 cookies.  And if you need anymore incentive, I can say with conviction that these are going on the “make again” list!

This will be it for me for now, readers, however I’m going to add the tantalizing little piece of information that this recipe only used up half of the pumpkin puree I bought – so look for another pumpkin recipe to come!   I’ll leave you with a quote from of the movies I watched over the weekend, though, just because it was so poignant: “You think your life belongs to you?  Tenar gave me life.  That’s why I have to live, to give life to someone else.  Lebannen…that’s the only way we live forever.” (from Tales from Earthsea).  Well as always, thanks for reading, cheers!  Until then…

Mischief managed

P.S.  Remember, everyone needs a cookie sometimes

Even evil masterminds like James Moriarty.

…and lolcats, of course.

I see what you did there. Internetz humor

 

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